Steel company bringing 26 jobs to Evansville | VIDEO

Chicago-based Sugar Steel Corp. has opened a distribution center on Evansville's West Side, and the company plans to hire 26 workers by the end of next year.

The distribution center is located at 3350 Claremont Ave., which formerly housed Evansville-based Patriot Steel. Patriot filed for bankruptcy last summer, and it shut down operations several weeks ago.

At a news conference Tuesday, Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel called the announcement a "strong moral boost" to a community still hurting from the recent recession.

"Hopefully, Sugar Steel's announcement is an indication that the economy's starting to turn around," the mayor said.

Founded in 1966, Sugar Steel is a wholly-owned subsidiary of California-based Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. The Evansville facility will be Sugar Steel's first outside of its Chicago headquarters, where about 90 people work.

Skeet Luther, office manager who also works in sales at Sugar Steel's Evansville facility, said the company was attracted to Evansville because of the availability of both a suitable building and a trained workforce.

Evansville also made sense from a logistical perspective, Luther said. It's closer to some of the company's existing customers and will be a good spot from which to add new customers.

Sugar Steel will distribute steel beams, pipes and other structural components used in building construction.

"You could look at us like a lumberyard, but we sell steel," Luther said.

Local and state officials offered incentives to lure Sugar Steel to Evansville, Weinzapfel said.

The city will offer a six-year tax phase-in on Sugar Steel's expected personal property investment of $920,000. A tax phase-in allows for the gradual phasing in of the property tax associated with an increase in the assessed value of a building and/or equipment purchase. The value of the tax phase-in, the city estimates, is $40,000.

For its part, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Sugar Steel up to $175,000 in performance-based tax credits based on the number of jobs the company expects to create.